


Casino Royale

by quillsandswords



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, M/M, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 00:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15785190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quillsandswords/pseuds/quillsandswords
Summary: A business talk turns sentimental when the casino's owner begins reminiscing about his former lover.





	Casino Royale

Acquiring Casino Royale was not at all difficult. The previous owners were eager to get rid of it, for the place brought them much more debt than profit. They were willing to sell it even at the lowest price, that was how much they loathed the place. Twenty-five-year-old Zhang Yixing, however, mostly thanks to the hint of empathy and sympathy in his heart, paid a decent amount; an amount that was bigger than the profits the ex-owners scraped up in six months. 

 

Zhang Yixing’s version of the casino did not have the same awful fate. He completely transformed the location, first renaming it after his favorite James Bond movie, then changing the entire interior, some of the exterior. Some staff members quit when the casino was sold to him, those few that stayed were given a short, better training period and later gained everything from new uniforms to new, experienced colleagues. It was a grand investment. It was a great risk. But Zhang Yixing succeeded. Casino Royale had become the most successful and finest casino, attended only by the richest of the elites. Making him, evidently, part of this rich elite. 

 

Do Kyungsoo, the head of the PR team was very much impressed by the success and consequently, impressed by the bright owner. Yixing’s mind was a source of admiration for him and he never failed to show it, along with his interest, anytime he had a moment to discuss business with the man. 

 

‘It’s incredible how people that had no interest in this place suddenly rush inside here ever since it’s Casino Royale.’ 

 

Kyungsoo was expressing his fascination once again while sitting in the owner’s office, in the leather armchair in front of the large, wooden desk. Zhang Yixing was pacing from left to right, his palms rubbing together and though these moves seemed frantic, he was far from troubled. A calm and charming smile was graced on his lips the entire time and his gaze was burning in both pride and desire for more.

 

‘It’s all about understanding what every single human being desires. When you find that desire, you take advantage of it, you use it and abuse it as hard as you can.’  
 

Zhang Yixing was speaking in a calm, content voice which was heard from different corners of the room. He could not stay in his place and his hands needed to be kept busy. His fingers would maybe caress the edges of the table or the leather materials of the chairs or, more than likely, get tangled with the numerous, luxurious decorations in the office. 

 

‘Every single human being? With billions of people around the world, you’d think there would be billions of desires.’ Kyungsoo responded as his body swiftly leaned back on the chair, eyes not leaving the mastermind of the casino.

 

‘No, Kyungsoo.’ 

 

Zhang Yixing only called a few people by their names like that. Those people were usually loyal disciples or adored family members.

 

‘That’s where you’re wrong. You see, Kyungsoo,’ the owner began, eyes on the floor while pacing around. ‘there is a basic desire in all humans that needs to be satisfied immediately. This doesn’t just work in the minimalist programme, this is something that works in every single aspect in life. It’s not some grammar rule, it’s a life rule. Understand these basic life principles and you will understand the people.. And consequently, the world.’

 

‘So then what is this basic desire, sir?’

 

A subtle smirk showed on Zhang Yixing’s lips at that, he was quite clearly waiting for that question. Still in silence, he approached his desk and sat on the edge of it, one leg bent atop of the wooden surface, with the other still at the ground. He leaned in close, one hand resting on his hips and the other gesturing as he spoke.

 

‘Kyungsoo, why do you have sex?’ 

 

The shorter was unable to hide his surprise at the sudden question, his cheeks showing his flustered spirit immediately.

 

‘Excuse me, sir?’

 

‘Why do you have sex?’

 

‘Well. I mean I- I guess cause I have an urge I need to please.’

 

‘You have a rush of desires that needs to be satisfied.’ Zhang Yixing reworded the answer, his back straightening and hand moving again while smirking. ‘Sex is a basic human need, we all need it at one point and guess what? We all enjoy it. It’s addicting. Our bodies are the first things that need to be pleasured and are the quickest things that react to said pleasure. And do you know how our bodies get fired up for this desire in the first place?’

 

‘No, sir. How?’

 

‘Through the eyes, Kyungsoo. Why do you think all those rich individuals came here in the first place? Look at our girls, look at our boys. One glance at them and all our guests are horny messes. And our girls and boys know that, which is precisely why they lure them inside here so easily. You think I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes? You think I don’t know that our waitress Hyosung pleasured a couple of men in their cars? I know everything, Kyungsoo, I’m just not saying anything because it’s to my benefit. Or, if I do say anything, I just tell them to continue their act.’

 

‘But, sir.’ 

 

Kyungsoo was quick to respond while his back straightened again, only to allow both of his arms to rest on either side of his chair. Zhang Yixing eyed him curiously, yet with a knowing smile, anticipating the shorter’s confusion. 

 

‘Aren’t we a casino? Our employees do not offer sexual pleasure for money. How do we get our profit?’

 

‘Because our employees merely lure our visitors into the first step, Kyungsoo. Our employees offer a faint taste of what Casino Royale has to offer.’

 

 At that, Zhang Yixing stood on his feet again, rearranging the buttons of his shirt, once again beginning to pace from left to right behind his own seat at the desk.

 

‘Tell me, Kyungsoo, why do you earn money?’

 

Again, completely startled, the changing of topics being too quick, Kyungsoo flushes again.

 

‘Because I need it to live?’

 

‘Exactly.’

 

The owner was quick to rub his palms together again, his smirk turning into a pleased smile at his employee’s quick way of thinking.

 

‘You need money, you make it because you need it. So do our visitors. They may be rich now but guess what? Money is a vice. Money makes us greedy, incredibly greedy. We have individuals come here, risking everything at our roulette tables but their passion for winning and gaining more is far stronger than any fear. They come here not to socialize but to show off to their fellow rich ones. Friends? Not at all. Enemies. Have you ever heard a rich person saying they are happy with being just rich? No. A rich person wants to be a millionaire. A millionaire wants to be a billionaire. Once you get a taste of money, you keep craving for more and this brings us back to the pleasures our employees offer.’

 

It took Kyungsoo a couple of minutes to process those thoughts during which Zhang Yixing stopped behind his own seat, hands placing on top of it and his fingers dancing in swift rhythm over the fabric.

 

‘So what you mean is that we play on their innate desire for sex and addiction to money.’

 

The other could not hide his proud smirk while his gaze fixated on Kyungsoo, soon gesturing with both of his hands. 

 

‘Money and sex, Kyungsoo. Understand these two and you will have the world half-wrapped around your finger.’

 

Kyungsoo showed his own proud grin, more than glad that he was able to bring out silent praise from the casino owner. His joy went to the roof, so quickly that it took him a good few seconds for his mind to process the last part uttered by the other male.

 

‘Half-wrapped, sir-?’ he repeated, somewhat uncertain, confusion evident on his features.

 

‘Remember?’ Zhang Yixing began as his hands were stuffed in the pockets of his pants. ‘Understand the basic human desires.’

 

‘Aren’t these two the basic desires?’

 

‘There is an even more basic desire, hidden underneath the two. It’s hard to catch, for sure, but once you do, you can play on that desire not just with a casino, but with everything. Because that desire is not only limited to a simple building with good looking men and women meant to make money.’

 

‘What do you mean with this one, sir?’

 

Moving to the side of his desk, Zhang Yixing leaned his hip against the piece of furniture, eyeing the other, voice soft as he chose his words slowly and carefully to explain; and as he did, he leaned closer and closer, slowly, gradually, surely. 

 

‘Humans are miserable with their lives. Try showing me one person that never had a regret in their life, or one that never made a decision which turned their lives in an unexpectedly negative way. There is always something cruel to face, there is always something pressing on our minds and souls that make life impossible to live. So what do we do? We try finding an escape. We look for a different world to experiment. No one is stupid enough to believe they can live in the other world permanently but even just a few seconds of pleasure are enough when one is so desperate for it. What happens in this other world? In this other world, our needs are met, our desires are satisfied. For so many of these miserable rich people, Casino Royale, Kyungsoo, is this other world. Why do you think we are decorated in all those expensive, golden chandeliers? Why do you think our ceilings are so high? Why do you think our staff members are so beautiful? Why do you think our walls are painted in such warm colors? Who lives in a place like this? No one. It’s a world unlike any other, it’s the world they escape to. Why do they escape here, to us? Because their innate desires, their needs given by nature are all satisfied by us. They feel the utmost pleasure when they are here with us. For some of those rich people, their hours spent between our walls are the only hours of pleasure, and dare I say, happiness, that their miserable lives can achieve. And Kyungsoo, once you have that taste of happiness, it’s impossible to ever let go.’

 

Once he finished, the room went silent. Zhang Yixing continued smiling while Do Kyungsoo’s eyes widened and mouth just slightly fell agape. The office was warm thanks to the fireplace on the side but there was something in Zhang Yixing’s words and the enlightenment in Do Kyungsoo’s mind that brought a heat incomparable to the fireplace. If Kyungsoo’s admiration was poor earlier, it definitely reached the highest level after the short speech.

 

‘Wow..’ was the first exclamation of the shorter. ‘I honestly had no idea there was an entire psychology behind all this.’ 

 The owner only showed a satisfied smirk before settling on his desk, comfortably sitting for the second time that night. 

‘Figuring all of this out, sir.. It takes great intelligence, I must say I really admire you for this.’

 Zhang Yixing responded to that with a quick shaking of his head.

‘It has nothing to do with intelligence, Kyungsoo. It’s experience. It’s life lessons. If you get to know and be aware of yourself enough, you will end up knowing others. The entire world is just an infinite spiral.’

‘What do you mean by that, sir?’

‘Like our visitors, I also want to escape.’

Once those words sounded, the air turned cold, despite having the fireplace still intact. The coldness came right from Zhang Yixing himself. The atmosphere, energy, temperature, whatever one would call it dropped drastically. Zhang Yixing’s eyes also dropped to the floor and his hands were once again stuffed in his pockets. His mind started wandering out of his office and out of his casino. He was escaping but he could only do that mentally. He could not tell which option was worse: escaping only halfway or being caged completely. 

‘Escape, sir?’

It was Kyungsoo again who broke the silence, voice uncertain. It was clear that the owner was spacing out and by the sudden change in atmosphere, he was somewhat sure that Zhang Yixing no longer wanted any company. It came as a surprise to him when the man just slowly nodded his head a couple of times. 

‘See, our visitors get up on their feet and step into this.’ The owner extended his arm and showed around his office, though referencing the casino as a whole. ‘For me it’s different. My escape zone is not this, if anything, this is where I am trapped most of the time. All I can do is mentally escape but mental escapes are even more temporary than the ones these rich folks go through. I am always forced to come back here in a matter of minutes, sometimes even seconds.’

‘Sir. I am sure you can find a place to physically escape to as well.’

‘I had one.’ Yixing’s softer tone came up while his hand dropped. ‘I had one, he was more than an escape world. He was my safe zone. And I lost him.’

‘Him?’

Yixing could only nod at that repetition, a small yet very much pained smile crossing on his lips. Gaze went back on the incredibly expensive carpet. His safe zone used to be the safest of all. His two arms gave more warmth and security than an entire four-walled room. Yixing’s home was not his apartment, it was him. His parents’ house was not his home, it was him. His warm embrace, his sweet scent, the smooth touch on his cheeks, his wonderful hair Yixing loved combing through, fixing out of pure care. His home was the gaze in his eyes and the faint smile on his lips. His home was the sound of his voice when he talked so passionately about something he liked, or the sound of his laughter, whether it came when Yixing said something funny or did something downright embarrassing. Home is where the heart is and Yixing’s heart belonged with him.

‘Did something bad happen? With him?’

‘Oh, he is still around.’ The owner quickly informed. ‘Just not with me.’

And he was indeed not. He was tired of Yixing’s actions and the most painful thing to Yixing was admitting that he indeed was too broken for the man. Yixing never believed in soulmates but that particular man turned all his beliefs upside down. Sadly, many beliefs were turned in the wrong way. He never believed that anything would destroy a pure relationship based on love, but it did. He believed that every single problem of the universe could be resolved as long as two individuals loved each other to death but alas, he was wrong. He always believed harm would come from the outside, from a third party, from an intruder but he was wrong; harm came from the inside, the same relationship that bloomed so beautifully grew big and sharp thorns. And he could not help but think the entire time that he was the cause of those thorns. 

‘My mind was too damaged, it still is. I never meant to burden him and he never meant to be burdened by me. But ultimately, it happened.’ 

‘There are one too many reasons why relationships don’t work out, sir.’

After that, with deep breaths and very slow movements, the casino’s owner stood up again. He began pacing, stepping on the expensive carpet that he was eyeing, very carefully and incredibly slowly. His speeding mind made his moves slow down. For once, his hands were still and did not bother to touch random objects.

‘Maybe there really were but one of the reasons was me. He was.. unlike anything I ever felt, I had no idea how to play by the rules. How do you know how to handle something when you never experienced it before? He was my everything. My entire world, my entire life, my entire existence. When he left it all fell into dust. But you know what was worse than him leaving? Me not doing anything about it. Because frankly, he deserved so much better than me.’ He continued a few seconds later after a deep breath, looking at the wall in front of him. ‘I was confident but as time passed and the dark demons invaded my mind again, I became convinced he deserved better than me. However, I greedily and selfishly hoped he would not know that. It was a paradox. I knew I was nothing but I wanted to be everything at the same time. I tried so hard to give everything but my broken mind won.’

‘What do you mean by broken mind, sir?’

‘My demons.’ He was quick to answer when looking at the shorter. ‘At some point, they gave me a different perspective of myself that I agreed upon. I hated myself but I loved him so much. And he knew everything and so he was there. All the time. Moments I was most vulnerable, moments I was in my darkest places, moments when I felt the saddest he was there. And I just grew more and more attached, I was so attached, I could not see anything else but him. I couldn’t even see the walls at one point, because he was all that surrounded me.’ 

‘But sir, that sounds beautiful.’

‘For a while.’

Yixing then moved, yet again, from one side of the carpet to another, eyeing the patterns which were starting to become way too busy and crowded for his taste.

‘Again, many things went wrong. I can’t blame him for leaving after all those things went wrong. But I also can’t turn off my feelings. So whether I like it or not, I am going to have to sit here lonely, broken, sad with my heart still filled with love for him.’

‘You will find someone else, sir.’

‘No.’ his head shook hard, completely certain. ‘I dated a lot before him, a lot. No one ever brought me the feelings I had for him and I know, by knowing myself I know, no one will ever bring those feelings back. Will I date occasionally? Sleep around from time to time? Maybe, yeah. Will I fall in love as deeply, completely as with him? Never.. I believe all of us have only one soulmate and I met mine.. Only to tragically lose him because of my stupidity.’

‘You blame yourself way too much.’ Kyungsoo straightened again in his seat, eyes not leaving the man’s now gloomy form. ‘Maybe you had part of the fault but not the entire one.’

‘Maybe..’ Yixing’s smile displayed his dimples but it was far from a sincere one. ‘Just like in business and life in general, the person responsible with damages should be the one to try and fix things. I always felt that by blaming myself I would gain control over the situation and gain a way to magically fix everything. To fix us. Fix him. Fix myself. But of course, that was yet another illusion from my broken mind. He had enough and God.. I cannot blame him for it, I can never. And at the same time, I wish he stayed. With him, I had a reason to work on myself but without him I see no way. If he doesn’t see me worth staying for, who will? If he couldn’t take me, who can?’ 

‘But sir, look around you. Your business is thriving, you are putting in hard work that is paying off. You are intelligent, not a lot of people would be able to build this. The way you see into other people’s minds and understand them, it’s something a handful of people can do. Not to mention this talent of yours gives you financial stability?’

‘None of that matters without him.’

Kyungsoo sighed at that and stayed silent, not because of how he got cut off but because of the sympathy he felt. Indeed when in love, nothing else in the world mattered. Telling his superior that his world could be rebuilt would have been the biggest lie he could ever tell him. Because frankly, everybody breaks the same way when love crashes and nobody recovers completely from it.

‘All of this, if he asked me to give it up for him, I would, any time. Nothing in this world matches up with how precious he always was and always will be.’ His voice started breaking, hand pressed on the wall but he composed himself with a couple of deep breaths. ‘He did not want to understand how precious he was to me, despite everything. And I can’t blame him but at the same time I want to. I also want to blame myself. If only I was good enough, if only I wasn’t broken, if only I was sane enough, if only.. If only I wasn’t myself.’

At that he abruptly went silent. Yet again, everything dawned on him and he tried spacing out once again. But alas, that lasted for a couple of seconds, and he soon found himself back in his office. His rather weak feet helped him shuffle on the carpet and a loose hand went on the doorknob, leading him out to the warm and cozy waiting room right in front of his office. There was a window, a huge window, a glass wall to be exact. It allowed him to see everything that was currently happening in his casino. He would spend a lot of time there, just curiously watching people move, sometimes bump into each other and other times retreating in a lonely corner. 

He approached the glass window and his eyes soon fixated on a particular human being by a table. The being was in a casual position, seemingly very engaged in a talk with his fellow rich mates. Alcohol and cigarette smoke surrounded them, though the person he was eyeing only had a glass of strong drink in his hand. His face was as gentle as ever and his gaze was warm as always. His smile was blooming on his features the entire time. He looked happy. Kim Junmyeon. Looking at him was calming, ensuring that he was still, in some sense, Yixing’s safe zone. However, it was also very much painful. The more he stared at the man through the glass, the more he wished they could be in each other’s arms again, in complete silence and warmth, talking in faint whispers and sharing soft kisses. He was not sure if Junmyeon knew he was the owner of the casino he so frequently visited, chances were, he did not. Because if he did, he would surely never show his face there ever again. Yixing wished he did not know, because as much as they hurt, those silent moments, watching Junmyeon at a distance were the smallest doses of happiness he was addicted to, but could never fully satisfy his cravings. 

 ‘Sir?’ 

Kyungsoo’s voice interrupted him yet again and his head turned towards the shorter, gaze resembling broken glass and his mind still fully occupied with the image of his former lover at the round table.

‘Are you okay, sir?’

Before he could utter a word, Yixing’s hand slipped in the pocket of his dress-shirt, from which he pulled out a pack of slim cigarettes and a lighter. He soon placed one of the addicting cigarettes in his mouth, lighting the end of it right after. Yixing hated lying, it made him feel guilty, so maybe if he did not utter his lie completely, maybe if he just muttered the words through a full mouth, it would not technically be a lie.

‘I’m fine.’


End file.
